Regen Morris due back home Friday

Five months after he first entered the hospital for treatment of brain cancer and became a community cause, the 12-year-old will be returning home on Friday.

He is riding in a Sevier County ambulance from St. Jude Children's Hospital in Memphis and should be getting to Sevierville around 6 p.m., his aunt, Joy Maples, said Wednesday.

"We are so thankful," Maples said. "The prayers have been working. We need people to keep praying big."

Regen's radiation/chemo treatments have shrunk his tumors "significantly," Maples said. He will continue to get chemo treatments both at home administered by his mother and in a Knoxville hospital. He will return to St. Jude in about seven weeks.

Regen and his family are hoping his friends and fans will line the streets to welcome him home. The ambulance will travel down Highway 66 then go east on Dolly Parton Parkway to the family's home.

"This is a way for all his fans and those who pray for him to show their support," Maples said.

Regen's mother has been with him since he entered the hospital last November and has been with him at St. Jude since he was admitted in early January.

"She doesn't realize how much community support there has been because she hasn't been around to see it," Maples said.

Those who line the streets are asked to wear green — Regen's favorite color.

"This will do them a world of good to see such support," Maples said.

Maples says the family is unsure if Regen is home for good. The scans done on his brain after treatment did show the tumors had shrunk, but his treatments will go on. He can have no more radiation, so chemotherapy is the only option.

Regen was a student at Pi Beta Phi School in Gatlinburg and member of the Beta Club, tennis team, and leading scorer for his middle school basketball team when he began to feel ill last fall. He was diagnosed with Anaplastic Astrocytoma and has three malignant tumors.

He is the youngest son of Dan And Tishia Morris. He has two older brothers, Walker and Braeden.